Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next day I walked up to my old apartment door for what I knew would be the last time. I had spent the night in the second largest bedroom in Cavanaugh Cottage and Kenna had given me a lift back here so I could gather my things.
As I approached my apartment door I glanced around just in case.
Just in case Kenna wasn’t the only one who had become suspicious of me, just in case the landlord wasn’t the only one invading my privacy. Just in case there was something to notice and I had missed it.
Because no matter how safe I felt, no matter how secure Kenna’s place really was, until I solved my own case I would always be living with the facts hanging over my head.
Somebody out there wanted me to take the fall for Monica’s murder, to go to prison for it, and the chance that they had simply forgotten about me after I had escaped FBI custody was non-existent.
They were still out there, biding their time. Waiting for me to make a mistake.
Sliding the key into the lock, I swung the door open and stared at the few measly items in the room that actually belonged to me. The rack of clothing in the corner, the sage-green comforter, and the pile of dog-related paraphernalia on the kitchen counter.
And the gift basket.
In the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten about it.
But there it was, staring me in the face.
Obviously, it hadn’t been from the landlord; he didn’t strike me as the kind of person to leave gifts outside his tenant’s doors, especially given his penchant for coming and going as he wished.
I was actually surprised he wasn’t rooting through that instead of my fridge. It certainly had more in it.
Beyond that, I had no attachment to the items in this apartment. The mattress had been there when I arrived, Trick assuring me that he had pulled it out of storage and not some dumpster, and the ugly little lamp that I now knew worked perfectly fine until the landlord had come in and unplugged it.
“How can I help?” Kenna asked as she came up behind me and peered into the ridiculously small space. I had to give her credit for not making a face at how I’d been living so far. But then again, she’d already seen the inside of my apartment yesterday.
“Can you grab Rogue’s things?” I asked as I pointed toward the kitchen counter. “I’ll get my clothes and toiletries gathered up. After that, there’s not much point in bringing anything else.”
“Of course,” Kenna said, and she headed straight for the kitchenette.
Grabbing the duffel bag I had brought with me and the department store bag I hadn’t gotten around to throwing away, I set about stuffing all my remaining belongings into them before folding up my blanket and carting it all out to Kenna’s trunk.
“I think that’s it,” Kenna said as she set the last of Rogue’s things in beside my meager belongings. She turned to me, raising an eyebrow. “Unless you want to do a little property damage before we go?”
I laughed, but I knew better than to add that charge to the long-running list of things I would have to face down in court once my name was cleared of the most obvious hurdle.
“No, I think just losing my monthly payments is punishment enough for now. I’ll be right back, I need to give that jerk his keys and let him know I won’t be renting from him any longer,” I said.
Kenna gave me a thumbs-up before hooking it over her shoulder toward the dog sitting in the back seat.
“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “Rogue and I will just be here hanging out. Becoming BFFs, whispering behind your back.”
“Uh huh,” I replied, giving her a skeptical look. “Just don’t let him get out of the car off leash. He has a bad habit of heading south anytime he’s left unattended.”
“Dogs are definitely unique,” Kenna said. I didn’t necessarily feel like explaining that that was how I’d found him in the first place.
Heading to the manager’s office, I worked the apartment key off my key ring and knocked on the door.
When nobody answered, I glanced over at the sign next to the door that had posted hours, confirming that somebody was supposed to be there.
Knocking again, I waited all of two seconds before deciding that I wasn’t particularly in the mood to talk to that man again anyway.
Instead, I simply dropped the key into the mail slot and decided to let him figure it out himself.
If he had any problems with me leaving without notice, I would simply remind him that if he wanted to go to court, I was happy to bring up his violations in a countersuit.
The fact that I couldn’t do that, could not end up in court without putting everything at risk, was none of his business.
Besides, it was simply the threat of facing charges himself that would keep me from owing him anything other than a middle finger.
Climbing back into the Rivian, I found Kenna sprawled out in the back seat with Rogue lying on top of her, his tail smacking the headrest of the driver’s seat over and over again.
Kenna was entirely unconcerned with the potential damage that a repeated beating would cause her car and was instead giggling and giving Rogue the enabling that I knew that as his owner I couldn’t be the one to give him.
“Enough fooling around, you two,” I said as I buckled myself into the passenger seat. “Let’s go home.”
We pulled up to Cavanaugh Cottage with music blasting through Kenna’s speakers and Rogue’s head hanging out the back window. Kenna parked beside my Accord, which she had arranged with Trick to bring by while we were out.
“Keys should be hanging up in the hallway,” she said.
“Also, I forgot to mention that I am hosting a Fourth of July barbecue on Monday. It’s not going to be a big bash or anything, but now that this is also your place, I figured we ought to talk about it.
If I need to relocate the venue in order to keep you feeling safe and comfortable, then I’m happy to do so. ”
“No, it’s fine,” I said, as I unclipped Rogue and led him into the yard through the side gate.
Returning to the car, I gave Kenna a grateful smile as she pulled the things from my apartment out of the trunk and began carting them inside.
“You’re already being so generous and if it’s a bunch of people you already trust, then I don’t see a reason to think that it would be unsafe.
Really, I’m more concerned with strangers.
People you’ve never seen before, people that don’t usually spend time in the area.
Trust me. Nobody here was involved in anything I witnessed. ”
Except maybe ASAC Shepherd, but considering the tension between Gracie and Lachlan, I didn’t expect Kenna to invite Lachlan’s father to her intimate little gathering.
“I invited eight guests and everyone is local,” Kenna confirmed as she set Rogue’s things in my bedroom. She paused for a moment and then turned to me with a slight tilt to her head. “You’re working tonight, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because Lexi’s memorial is tonight and I just want to make sure that you feel prepared to handle the bar on your own, at least for an hour or two while Trick and I are both away,” she explained.
“That’s really sweet,” I said as we both headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the living room.
I could see the backyard from the living room couch and knew it was going to be my new favorite spot as I watched Rogue chase his tail in dizzying circles.
Freedom looked good on him. “Trick already checked in about that, though, and honestly I’m far less likely to break another glass with a little more sleep and a little less looking over my shoulder every two seconds to figure out who’s watching me. ”
“That’s good,” Kenna said, moving over to the kitchen island and pouring herself a glass of water. She lifted the pitcher in my direction with an inquisitive look and I nodded, watching as she poured a second glass before bringing it over to me.
I took it from her gratefully and sipped at it in the silence that lingered between us. I wasn’t sure what else to say. I felt like the two of us had fallen into an odd limbo between strangers and friends.
“Can I ask you something?” Kenna asked after a few moments.“Sure,” I said, slightly wary.
“Well, now that I know you’re not here to bust my brother and you obviously have something in your background related to law enforcement, is there anything you think I might have missed?” Kenna asked.
I sat there stunned at the vulnerability of the question, and at how humble she had to be in order to ask it.
Humble, or desperate. With Lexi’s memorial scheduled for later that night and Kenna the one who had been hired to figure out what even the local police couldn’t, I had no doubt that the question would have been weighing on her even if she and Lexi hadn’t been close friends.
“To be honest, I ended up having to go get Rogue before Gracie and I could really dig into the specifics,” I told her. “I meant what I said. If you let that dog out, he will head south.”
“Oh,” Kenna said, and I could tell that she was trying not to sound too disappointed.
I understood that feeling better than most. Sitting there drinking water on Kenna’s couch as she attempted to leverage someone else’s experience to help her solve a cold case that she was particularly close to felt like a direct parallel to the moment in that coffee shop when Monica had given me the advice that changed my life.
“Sometimes a cold case only gets solved when the right person asks the right question at the right time,” I told Kenna, and felt a twinge of guilt at giving her the same answer I had hated all those years ago.
“So then the answer you’re looking for is probably found in a question you haven’t thought to ask yet, or one that you have been too afraid to voice.
What question do you keep thinking about? ”
“I just can’t figure out what made her change her mind,” Kenna said immediately.
“Who, Lexi?” I asked, and Kenna nodded, biting her lip. “What do you think Lexi changed her mind about?”
“Telling us she was planning to leave,” Kenna replied.
She stood up, beginning to pace as she talked.
“She told me she had big news and that she was going to tell Gracie and I all about it at coffee that day. But then she never showed up and just…disappeared. I don’t know what it was about, but the day they found that hand I realized she never got the chance to. ”
“How come?” I asked.
“It just wasn’t like her to be secretive, especially with Gracie,” Kenna sighed, shaking her head. She paused at the sliding glass door, looking out at the back yard pensively. “You ever feel like you’re the worst person in the world at your job?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Actually, I know exactly how that feels.”
I stared down at my water as I contemplated everything I knew so far about Lexi Tate. Type-A, planned for the future, already leaving town when she disappeared. The silence stretched again as we both became caught up in our thoughts, Kenna staring absently through the window.
“Jeez.”
I glanced up. “Hmm?”
“Your dog is obsessed with trying to get to California,” she said, looking out the window. It sounded like she was deflecting, but as I followed her gaze, I spotted Rogue at the south boundary of the fence, furiously digging into Kenna’s perfectly manicured lawn.
“Oh God,” I said under my breath as I stood up to call him back in before he got both of us kicked out.
“It’s okay,” Kenna assured me, completely calm despite the fact that it had been less than one day and we were already causing chaos in her quaint little cottage.
“But seriously, think about it. You keep saying he wants to go South, but what is it that he’s looking for?
Dogs like familiarity, right? If he keeps going the same direction, don’t you think he might actually be headed toward something? ”
“Huh,” I said, tilting my head as I watched my dog pad into the kitchen with muddy feet. “I hadn’t thought to ask that.”
With all the chaos in my life, I’d forgotten to be curious about the little things, but maybe it was time to go back to the basics. Maybe it was time to figure out what Rogue needed. And once I had that small win, I could use the momentum to figure out everything else.